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Joseph Howze Is Dead at 95; Groundbreaking African-American Bishop
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/obituaries/joseph-howze-dies.html?
Joseph Howze, the first African-American bishop appointed to preside over a Roman Catholic diocese in the 20th century and an advocate for blacks within the church, died on Jan. 9 in Ocean Springs, Miss. He was 95.
Before Bishop Howze, the only bishop known to be of African-American descent to lead an American diocese was James Augustine Healy, who became bishop of Portland, Me., in 1875.
Appointed by Pope Paul VI, Bishop Howze had the task of expanding a predominantly white diocese in the Deep South. Though he was apprehensive on arriving in Mississippi in the early 1970s, as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson, most parishioners accepted him, he said, despite the state’s history of racial unrest.
Lawson Howze was born to Albert and Helen (Lawson) Howze on Aug. 30, 1923, in Daphne, Ala., on the Gulf Coast near Mobile. He grew up Baptist.
After graduating from high school in Mobile, he studied science and education at Alabama State University in Montgomery, earning his degree in 1948. He then taught science at a Mobile high school, where a student piqued his interest in Catholicism; he was baptized into the church with the name Joseph that year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/obituaries/joseph-howze-dies.html?
Joseph Howze, the first African-American bishop appointed to preside over a Roman Catholic diocese in the 20th century and an advocate for blacks within the church, died on Jan. 9 in Ocean Springs, Miss. He was 95.
Before Bishop Howze, the only bishop known to be of African-American descent to lead an American diocese was James Augustine Healy, who became bishop of Portland, Me., in 1875.
Appointed by Pope Paul VI, Bishop Howze had the task of expanding a predominantly white diocese in the Deep South. Though he was apprehensive on arriving in Mississippi in the early 1970s, as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson, most parishioners accepted him, he said, despite the state’s history of racial unrest.
Lawson Howze was born to Albert and Helen (Lawson) Howze on Aug. 30, 1923, in Daphne, Ala., on the Gulf Coast near Mobile. He grew up Baptist.
After graduating from high school in Mobile, he studied science and education at Alabama State University in Montgomery, earning his degree in 1948. He then taught science at a Mobile high school, where a student piqued his interest in Catholicism; he was baptized into the church with the name Joseph that year.